South Korean blockchain investment firm Hashed announced Thursday that it has raised 240 billion South Korean won (about US$204 million) for its Hashed Venture Fund II to promote the Web3 ecosystem.
Fast facts
- Distinguished names in South Korea’s financial and content industry are participating in Hashed’s second venture fund, including conglomerates Naver; SK; LG; game developers KRAFTON, Wemade and Com2uS; fashion manufacturer F&F; online fashion retailer Musinsa, and entertainment agency HYBE, manager of global K-pop band BTS. Naver and KRAFTON invested in the first VC fund, which raised 120 billion won (about US$102 million).
- With this second venture fund, Hashed actively invest in the Web3 ecosystem, such as NFTs (non-fungible tokens), DeFi (decentralized finance), GameFi (game finance) and the metaverse. Baek Kim, principal at Hashed, wrote on its blog that the team “will focus on solving problems that improve end-user experiences, designing more engaging metaverse games, and making Web3 services safer for mass adoption.”
- Han Dae-hoon, analyst at SK Securities, told local media in an interview that the Web3 era has already arrived, and that it is anticipated that creative business models will experience growth through NFTs or DeFi built on the Ethereum blockchain ecosystem.
- Hashed has been an early investor in innovative blockchain projects such as Terra, Axie Infinity and The Sandbox. Its first venture fund invested in blockchain game developer Mythical Games, NFT platform Recur, decentralized exchange dYdX and more.
- The term Web3, or Web 3.0, encompasses the next generation of Web or internet that promotes decentralization and transparency, and is built using blockchain technology.